Written by a lay student of the Bible. Articles focus on apologetics and key elements such as the Deity of Christ and salvation through faith in Christ alone. With many thanks to Drs Brown, White, Sade, Wood, Qureshi, Dalcour and Zacharias, and Bros Shamoun and Rogers for their excellent teaching and inspiration. All glory goes to God for any truth I am able to communicate. Any errors are mine. All Scripture text is from the HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible) unless otherwise stated

Muslims do not just fail to see direct claims to divinity made by Jesus, but they also seem to ignore the full import of Jesus’ words. They gloss over them quickly, perhaps out of fear that what they see will contradict what they have been taught. And the Bible most certainly does that.

While there is no comparing the Bible with the Quran, to try and bridge that gap for Muslims, we will do a face off between some of the words that they believe were spoken by their god, Allah, with statements made by Jesus and others about His divinity.

This is the very first chapter of the Quran:

Surah 1 Al Fatihah (Pickthall)

1 In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

2 Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds,

3 The Beneficent, the Merciful.

4 Master of the Day of Judgment,

5 Thee (alone) we worship; Thee (alone) we ask for help.

6 Show us the straight path,

7 The path of those whom Thou hast favoured; Not the (path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.

We will break up this short chapter into the individual ayat (verses) and compare them to what Jesus says about Himself.

Since Muslims believe that Allah wrote the words of the Quran, we will read it that way. In the first verse, Allah says,

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. (Surah 1:1)

More than 6 centuries prior, Jesus had come to the Jews of the 1st century and used the Divine Name of the God of Israel, YHWH, or I Am, for Himself. For example:

“I assure you: Before Abraham was, I am.” John 8:58.

But Jesus also had no problems claiming divine attributes for Himself.

He claimed omnipresence:

"Again, I assure you: If two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them.” Matthew 18:19-20

Jesus also claimed omnipotence and omniscience and taught that the key to receiving answers to prayer is to pray in His name:

“Whatever you ask in My name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 14:13 “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” John 14:14

"You did not choose Me, but I chose you. I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.” John 15:16

Jesus also said access to the Father comes through Him alone and in His name:

“Whoever welcomes one little child such as this in My name welcomes Me. And whoever welcomes Me does not welcome Me, but Him who sent Me.” Mark 9:37

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6

Not only did He have no problems with miracles being performed in His name, He expected them:

“Don’t stop him,” said Jesus, “because there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name who can soon afterward speak evil of Me.” Mark 9:39

Jesus taught that the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity Who is God Himself, would be sent in His name:

“But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit—the Father will send Him in My name—will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.” John 14:26

And the Apostle Paul explains how there is no name that is higher than Jesus’ and how all will one day bow down to worship the King in perfect unity with the Father (italics mine):

“For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that isabove every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth— and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,to the glory of God the Father.”Philippians 2:9-11

Allah then says:

Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds (Surah 1:2)

But John the beloved says of Jesus, the Word of God,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created.” John 1:1-3

The Father says,

"In the beginning, Lord, You established the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands…“ Hebrews 1:10

And Jesus says He has power in heaven and on earth.

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Matthew 28:18

Next, Allah claims he is…

The Beneficent, the Merciful. (Surah 1:3)

But Jesus says,

“I am the good shepherd. I know My own sheep, and they know Me, as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father. I lay down My life for the sheep.” John 10:14-15

While Allah says he is merciful, he never does anything to prove it.

Jesus, on the other hand, not only spoke about His mercy,

“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10

but He also demonstrated it:

“But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!” Romans 5:8

Allah's next claim is that he is…

Master of the Day of Judgment (Surah 1:4)

But, speaking 600 years earlier, Jesus had already declared that it was He Who would be the Judge over all:

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…

Then He will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels!” Matthew 25:31-33, 41

“For just as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted to the Son to have life in Himself.

And He has granted Him the right to pass judgment, because He is the Son of Man.

Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come out—those who have done good things, to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked things, to the resurrection of judgment.” John 5:26-29

Next, Allah says…

Thee (alone) we worship; Thee (alone) we ask for help. (Surah 1:5)

But again, Jesus had already said that all would have to honor Him in the same way that they honor the Father:

“… so that all people will honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” John 5:23

Why? For a very simple reason:

“The Father and I are one.” John 10:30

Allah then says in his Quran,

Show us the straight path, (Surah 1:6)

The path of those whom Thou hast favoured; Not the (path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray. (Surah 1:7)

But, as we have already shown, Jesus said,

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6

No one means no one, whether Jew or Gentile, Christian or Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu.

Jesus says He is the only way.

“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” John 10:9-10

Jesus claims divine powers for Himself which He continues to exercise today as He hears and answers the prayers of believers: omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. Could He have been any clearer?

Jesus is God!

For a post about the odd speaking style employed by Allah in Surah 1. click the link below:

Since this is part of a series, we will borrow our introductory paragraph from a previous post: "One of the Bible's teachings that is frequently attacked is that of the deity of Christ. But every single one of the New Testament's four Gospels declares Jesus as God. And every single one of them does so in the very first chapter. We must also remember that, if the Gospel authors assert Christ's divinity in their very first chapters, this means that Jesus is God throughout the entirebook. Jesus cannot start off as God and lose His deity a few chapters later. That would make no sense. Either He is God, or He isn't. And we must let the text show us what it says. In its proper context. There will be no pretexts here." In this post, we go through the first chapter of the Gospel of John:

John 1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created.
...
14 The Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Could John the evangelist be any clearer? This is John, beloved apostle of the Lord, the dear friend who had stood at the foot of Jesus' cross beside Jesus' mother, Mary, and a few others, all of whom had watched their Master die. Just like the others, this John who had fled His side when He'd been arrested, was the very same John who was among the first to see Jesus' empty tomb. John was a witness to both his Lord's death and His resurrection. If there was anyone who could attest to the divinity of the Messiah, it was John.
And testify he did. John explains further about Jesus:
18 No one has ever seen God. The One and Only Son— the One who is at the Father’s side— He has revealed Him.
Students of the Bible will know that the title "Son of God" is not speaking of a biological relationship as some have mistaken it to be. Instead, it is a title of deity. When John writes that Jesus is the Son of God, he uses the Greek word "μονογενής" (transliterated "monogeneis"), which means "unique," the one and only. He is not one of many. He is the only one of His kind. There is no one else like Him because there is only one Son of God. There are many sons of God, but only one Son of God.
But that is not all that is being said in that verse. John also reminds us of the special relationship which the Son enjoys with the Father that only the Spirit shares in the unity of the Triune God. No mere human has ever seen God but, in Jesus, we do see Him. As John's fellow apostle Paul writes, Jesus is... "... the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by Him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together... For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him..." Colossians 1:15-17, 19

But there was another John in his namesake's Gospel who bore witness to Jesus' deity. This was Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist:

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

30 This is the One I told you about: ‘After me comes a man who has surpassed me, because He existed before me.’

33 I didn’t know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The One you see the Spirit descending and resting on—He is the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’
34 I have seen and testified that He is the Son of God!”The Baptist not only recognizes Jesus as the Messiah, the once-for-all-time Passover Lamb Who would take the sins of man upon His broken body to purchase our redemption, but he also acknowledges Jesus' pre-existence as the eternal and divine Word of God. Though John was older than Jesus by a few months, he says of the Lord, "He existed before me." (verse 30)
But he doesn't stop there. In calling Jesus the Son of God and saying it is He Who baptizes with the Holy Spirit, John yet again affirms Jesus' deity because only God can baptize with His Holy Spirit. What more appropriate way to end this article on the deity of Jesus but with a look at what He had to say about Himself?
51 Then He said, “I assure you: You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” "The Son of Man" is another divine title which Jesus used for Himself and the one He used most frequently. The clearest proof that this was a reference to His own divinity is seen in Jesus' use of the title at His trial before the Sanhedrin (for more on this, read "Was Jesus 'Just a Messiah?'" linked to below). But that is not the only divine reference Jesus uses in that single verse. When Jesus says, "You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man,” He was not merely trying to sound poetic. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown explain:

"The key to this great saying is Jacob's vision (Ge 28:12-22), to which the allusion plainly is. To show the patriarch that though alone and friendless on earth his interests were busying all heaven, he was made to see "heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon a" mystic "ladder reaching from heaven to earth." "By and by," says Jesus here, "ye shall see this communication between heaven and earth thrown wide open, and the Son of man the real Ladder of this intercourse." Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

The Bible is replete with evidence of the deity of the Christ, if one will only take the time to study it. From the Old Testament to the New, the proof is all there that...

Since this is part of a series, we will borrow an introductory paragraph from a previous post: "One of the Bible's teachings that is frequently attacked is that of the deity of Christ. But every single one of the New Testament's four Gospels declares Jesus as God. And every single one of them does so in the very first chapter. We must also remember that, if the Gospel authors assert Christ's divinity in their very first chapters, this means that Jesus is God throughout the entirebook. Jesus cannot start off as God and lose His deity a few chapters later. That would make no sense. Either He is God, or He isn't. And we must let the text show us what it says. In its proper context. There will be no pretexts here."

In this post, we go through the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke.

After a brief explanation of why he is writing this account of the life of Jesus, Luke relates the story of Zechariah and the miracles that accompanied the gift he received from God.
Zechariah was a priest who served in the Temple. His wife Elizabeth was a cousin of Mary, who was soon to become the honored woman who would bear the Messiah in her womb. Zechariah and Elizabeth were well along in years but had never had a child. One day, as Zechariah was performing his duties in the Temple, the angel Gabriel appeared to him and told him the good news. He was going to be a father to the man who would later be known as John the Baptist. What was John's mission to be?
Luke 1
16 "He will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God.17 And he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous, to make ready for the Lord a prepared people."
If you missed what was just said, read those two verses again slowly (italics mine).
Gabriel told Zechariah that John would turn "many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God."
Immediately following that statement, the angel said John would go before Him, meaning Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah, "to make ready for the Lord a prepared people."
John the Baptist was going to go before the very same "Lord their God" Who would use John to turn people's hearts back to Him.
John was going to prepare the way for the very same God Who was coming to dwell amongst His people.
But this startling statement was not made in a vacuum. It had been prophesied hundreds of years before:
Malachi 3
1 “See, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. Then the Lord you seek will suddenly come to His temple, the Messenger of the covenant you desire—see, He is coming,” says the Lord of Hosts.
Isaiah 40
3 A voice of one crying out: Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert. God Himself was coming to His Temple. And He was coming in the form of a Man. But there are more witnesses to confirm the deity of the One Who was to come in this opening chapter of the Gospel of Luke.
To further highlight the truly momentous and supernatural nature of the birth which was about to take place, once more YHWH sends Gabriel to earth with a message for a particularly blessed young lady.
Gabriel appeared to Mary and said,31 Now listen: You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will call His name Jesus.32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end. ...35 The angel replied to her:“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the holy One to be born will be called the Son of God."

We have this account no doubt from another very close eyewitness, one of the closest to Jesus who ever lived, Mary, Jesus' mother. It would have been Mary herself who told this story to Luke, and it is she who brings us the words of the angel.
In the four verses above, Gabriel tells us that Jesus is God:
- He is the Son of the Most High, a title of deity (cf. Isaiah 9:6-7) - His accession to the throne of David and His eternal reign also indicates His divinity - He is called the holy One and the Son of God, which are also references to His deity But again, there is more from this very first chapter of Luke. The pregnant Mary has come to visit her also pregnant cousin, Elizabeth, who is carrying the future John the Baptist:
41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped inside her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
42 Then she exclaimed with a loud cry: “You are the most blessed of women, and your child will be blessed!
43 How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? In this exchange, not only do we see the future prophet in Elizabeth's womb responding to the Presence of His Messiah, but in verse 43, Elizabeth confirms for us that the Child Mary bears is God when she says, "the mother of my Lord." In her response, Mary acknowledges the singular honor that has been bestowed on her:

46 And Mary said: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

47 and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,48 because He has looked with favor on the humble condition of His slave. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed,49 because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and His name is holy. Luke the evangelist ends the chapter with yet another paean to the grace and mercy of YHWH our Redeemer, as well as a prophecy of what was to come. Upon the birth of John the Baptist, his father Zechariah is filled with the Spirit of God and prophesies that the age of Messiah has finally come:
68 Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and provided redemption for His people.
69 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David,
70 just as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets in ancient times;
71 salvation from our enemies and from the clutches of those who hate us.
72 He has dealt mercifully with our fathers and remembered His holy covenant—
73 the oath that He swore to our father Abraham. He has given us the privilege,
74 since we have been rescued from our enemies’ clutches, to serve Him without fear
75 in holiness and righteousness in His presence all our days.
76 And child, you will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways,
77 to give His people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.
78 Because of our God’s merciful compassion, the Dawn from on high will visit us
79 to shine on those who live in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." The redemption, the salvation, the fulfillment of the promise made to the prophets and patriarchs, the rescue from enemies, the holiness and righteousness which can now be enjoyed by all who honestly and humbly seek it, Zechariah prophesies that all of these have come with Messiah. Zechariah knows that his son, as the Lord's prophet, is the last step towards fulfillment of the long-awaited promise of a Savior. And he, too, echoes the prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi in calling Messiah by divine titles: "the Most High," "Lord," and "the Dawn from on high." It is plain to see that there is not the faintest shadow of a doubt Who Jesus was in the eyes of those who loved and followed Him.

Who did Mark, the Gospel writer, think Jesus was?
We can find our answer very quickly in his Gospel because Mark doesn't waste any time at all: he states it immediately in the very first verse of the very first chapter. He then repeats it in verses 2, 3, 8 and 11.
Mark tells us Jesus is God five times in just the first 11 verses of his Gospel!
Let's go through 9 of the verses in the passage first to acquaint ourselves with the text, and then we'll go back over them to list and explain these testimonies of Jesus' deity.
Mark 1 (italics mine to highlight the declarations of deity)
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Look, I am sending My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way.
3 A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make His paths straight!
4 John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ...
7 He was preaching: “Someone more powerful than I will come after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of His sandals.
8 I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.
10 As soon as He came up out of the water, He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending to Him like a dove.
11 And a voice came from heaven: "You are My beloved Son; I take delight in You!"

a page from the Gospel of Mark

And that's our passage. Now let's take Mark's attestations one at a time.
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Though the phrase may be confusing to those unfamiliar with the New Testament, anyone who has read the Gospels knows that "Son of God" is a divine title in the Bible. Its context and usage for Jesus are clear and unambiguous, and on no one else is the title applied in a similar manner. While God has spiritual children in His sons and daughters, the Son of God is not a son in the same way. This Son is co-eternal, co-equal and con-substantial with the Father. None of God's spiritual sons or daughters is or ever will be like the One and Only Son, Jesus.
One other cue we can pick up from the verses which refer to Jesus as the Son of God is that He is never called "a Son of God."
It is always, "The Son of God," like we might use "the President of the country" since there is only one President of the nation, or "the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court" since there is only one Chief Justice. Son of God is a title in the same way that "President" and "Chief Justice" are titles.
The assignation to Jesus of the title of "Son of God" is Mark's testimony of Jesus' deity #1.
2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Look, I am sending My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way.
3 A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make His paths straight!
Many modern Bible translations use interpretive helps such as the capitalization of divine pronouns like the ones we see above ("My messenger," "ahead of You," and "who will prepare Your way") for the reader's convenience. These are employed to help one see immediately that the Person being referred to is God.
But the diligent Bible student is aware that even Bible scholars can make mistakes, and so we must always double check the work that has been done for us. In this case, both the prophets Malachi and Isaiah prophesy about John the Baptist (see article linked to below titled, "Jesus is Malachi's YHWH") and are quoted in verses 2 and 3, but Mark only refers to Isaiah, who is the better known prophet.
YHWH says to His divine Son that a messenger will be sent ahead of Him who will prepare the way for YHWH, and make YHWH's paths straight. And so the "You" in verse 2 and "the Lord" (or "YHWH" in the Old Testament) in verse 3 are Mark's divine attestations #2 and #3.
7 He was preaching: “Someone more powerful than I will come after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of His sandals.
8 I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
While John's comment displays the extremely high regard in which the Baptist held his cousin Jesus, "Someone more powerful than I... I am not worthy to untie... His sandals," this will not suffice for some as a testimony to the deity of Jesus.
But verse 8 does and abundantly so. And this because only God can baptize with His Holy Spirit. No man has that power, and yet John tells us that Jesus will do just that. This is Mark's testimony to Jesus' divinity #4.
10 As soon as He came up out of the water, He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending to Him like a dove.
11 And a voice came from heaven: "You are My beloved Son; I take delight in You!"

In our 5th and last testimony to the deity of Jesus in just the first 11 verses of Mark 1, the Father Himself tears open the heavens and announces Jesus' divine Sonship from heaven itself.
For no one else but God would such manifestations of the supernatural be simple to do, and these were done in front of witnesses so that many would be able to attest to all that had occurred.

Anyone who reads the Gospel of Mark will see that he has not changed his mind at the end of his book, and that the divine Jesus of the very first chapter is still God in the last chapter.
Mark 16 (italics mine)
19 Then after speaking to them, the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.
20 And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the accompanying signs. Our Gospel writer Mark ends his work the way he began it, continuing to proclaim Jesus as God and Lord, or Kurios in the Greek, the very same word used to describe God in the New Testament. Sitting down "at the right hand of God" is the Bible's way of saying that Jesus shares the power and authority of God.
But the writer doesn't stop at verse 19. In the final verse of the Gospel, Mark describes how, despite having now returned to heaven, Jesus "worked with His apostles and disciples" and confirmed the word He had spoken to them by doing miracles in their midst.
There can be no doubt about it...

Any text can be twisted to mean something that was never intended. Sadly, this is done with the Bible all the time. Single verses are wrenched from their contexts and reinterpreted to fit the misinterpreter's agenda, proving the maxim that "a text without a context is a pretext." If one is truly searching for truth, then one must always consider the context of the words being spoken. Especially when it is the Bible you are reading, because so much more is at stake. One of the Bible's teachings that is frequently attacked is that of the deity of Christ. But every single one of the New Testament's four Gospels declares Jesus as God. And every single one of them does so in the very first chapter. We must also remember that, if the Gospel authors assert Christ's divinity in their very first chapters, this means that Jesus is God throughout the entirebook. Jesus cannot start off as God and lose His deity a few chapters later. That would make no sense. Either He is God, or He isn't. And we must let the text show us what it says. In its proper context. There will be no pretexts here. Here is some of the proof of the divinity of Jesus from just the first chapter of the first Gospel of the Bible, the Gospel of Matthew:

Matthew 116 and Jacob fathered Joseph the husband of Mary,who gave birth to Jesus who is called the Messiah. While the Jews had been waiting for thousands of years for the coming of Messiah, the One they were expecting was a conquering king. Instead, He came as the Suffering Servant. For centuries, YHWH had been speaking through His prophets and slowly revealing that that Messiah was to be "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace and the Lord of hosts," all of which are divine titles. "There are some interpreters who say that ‘wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father’ are the names of God, and that only ‘prince of peace’ is the name of the child. But according to my view, the right interpretation is that they are all the names of the child." -- Rabbi Ibn Ezra(Walter Riggans, Yeshua Ben David [Wowborough, East Sussex; MARC, 1995], p. 370)21 "She will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.” The Old Testament of the Bible identifies only One Person as being The Savior, and that is YHWH. Jesus Himself and the New Testament identify Jesus as That Savior. They are one and the same Person (see article linked to below for more), in the same way that Jesus and the Father are one (John 10:30). Jesus' very own name in Hebrew, Yeshua, means "The Lord Saves." And in Jesus' case, the name is a literal one.23 "See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name Him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.” The Gospel writer Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14 in calling Jesus "Immanu El," which Matthew translates for us as "God with us." And God Jesus truly is. And so in just these three verses from the very first chapter of Matthew, we see Jesus identified as God. As we stated earlier, Jesus is identified as God all throughout not just the Gospel of Matthew, but throughout the entire New Testament. This means that, as we read through the rest of the Bible, we must always keep this fact in mind. Yes, He came to earth and took the form of man to become the Savior of sinful men by dying on the cross and raising Himself from the dead. Only God had the power to do that.

What was Messiah's main mission? We can take a cue from the name which had been chosen for Him hundreds of years before He came down to earth: Yeshua, which means "Yahweh is Salvation." But at the time that He came in the 1st century, Israel had been conquered by the Roman Empire and the Jews were being cruelly oppressed by their Occupiers. They longed to be set free and were looking for a mighty king like David who would form an Israelite army to defeat the Roman Goliath.
But was that Yahweh's Plan?
Or did He have a better solution in mind, one that would restore mankind to Him for eternity? Two years into His ministry, Jesus explains to His followers exactly what was going to happen to Him:
21 From then on Jesus began to point out to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day.
22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, “Oh no, Lord! This will never happen to You!”23 But He turned and told Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns, but man’s.” Matthew 16 What had Peter said that he should receive such a stinging rebuke from His Master? Just as He said, Jesus was scolding Peter for having a mindset that was aligned with man's thinking rather than God's. Where men are set on the easiest and most comfortable way out, God is not. The cross had always been God's Plan.

Where Peter may have thought that Jesus had come to be the next King David who would oust the Romans and establish a new Kingdom of Israel, God had much bigger things in mind. The salvation of men's souls was Jesus' goal, and Peter's attempt to pander to Him was not welcome. As early as the dedication of Jesus at the Temple, the Lord had already sent a prophecy to His parents to forewarn them about the pain that lay ahead (italics mine):34 Then Simeon blessed them and told His mother Mary: “Indeed, this child is destined to cause the fall and rise of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed— 35 and a sword will pierce your own soul—that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” Luke 2 But as far back as the Garden of Eden, Yahweh had already spoken about the day the Messiah would do final battle against God's enemy, Satan:

"I will put hostility between you and the woman,

and between your seed and her seed.

He will strike your head,

and you will strike his heel."

Genesis 3:15

Millennia later, and about a thousand years before Jesus' crucifixion, King David the psalmist prophesied about it...

"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

Why are You so far from my deliverance

and from my words of groaning?"

Psalm 22:1

"For dogs have surrounded me;

a gang of evildoers has closed in on me...

they pierced my hands and my feet.

They divided my garments among themselves,

and they cast lots for my clothing."

Psalm 22:16

Seven hundred years before the Christ, YHWH spoke once again, this time through the prophet Isaiah. And once again He gave us a glimpse into the ordeal that the Suffering Servant, Messiah, would have to endure: 5 But He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on Him, and we are healed by His wounds.
6 We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished Him for the iniquity of us all. ...10 Yet the Lord was pleased to crush Him severely. When You make Him a restitution offering, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, and by His hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished.
11 He will see it out of His anguish, and He will be satisfied with His knowledge. My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will carry their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give Him the many as a portion, and He will receive the mighty as spoil, because He submitted Himself to death, and was counted among the rebels; yet He bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebels. Isaiah 53

Isaiah also told uswhyall that pain was necessary.

Messiah had been sent to be our restitution offering. It was He who bore the punishment for our sins upon Himself in complete fulfillment of the Torah, the Law YHWH had given to Moses.

Two hundred years after Isaiah, and about 500 years before Jesus went to the cross, Yahweh spoke through Zechariah about Messiah's Second Coming. And YHWH made this astounding declaration (italics mine):10 “Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the house of David and the residents of Jerusalem, and they will look at Me whom theypierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child and weep bitterly for Him as one weeps for a firstborn." Zechariah 12 This is astounding because the Yahweh Who is speaking is not only promising to open the eyes of His people, the Jews, and reveal Who He is before He comes again, but YHWH is saying that He is the very same One Whom they pierced. The Yahweh Who is speaking in Zechariah 12 is the very same Messiah Yeshua Whose people had rejected Him when He first came. The very same Yeshua Who... 6 ... existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. 7 Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, 8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.Philippians 2

Jesus is Lord!

Most, if not all, of the crucifixion pictures are stills from the Mel Gibson movie, "The Passion of the Christ." See also: